By Paul Weiser
It’s often said that today’s Republicans consist of two camps: “social conservatives” and “libertarians.” This is mostly true, but the way in which it’s false is ruining the Republican Party. Let’s consider two salient issues.
In fact there’s a small but malignant third faction, the authoritarian or “country club” Republicans who blame the party’s losses on either of the others when in fact the blame is theirs - but they do this by rhetorically limiting an issue on which they’re wrong into one of the two real wings. Examples are immigration and the right to keep and bear arms (“gun control”).
Authoritarian Republicans (who may also be called RINOs, “Republicans in Name Only”) pretend immigration is purely a “social conservative” (sneer) issue. After all (they imply and sometimes say) libertarians are against the state, so must be for open borders and a doormat to illegals. Not so: libertarians are, above all, against government corruption and supine citizens - both of which characterize results of the doormat (RINO) approach to the problem.
Country-clubbers (like both Presidents Bush) also push, in their authoritarian way, for “gun control” on the assumption that it is either a social-conservative issue or a libertarian one (so a “majority,” including themselves, must be willing to encourage RINO assaults on the right to arms). In fact, libertarians and social conservatives both see arms as a means to meeting one’s responsibility to defend life, liberty, and property; it’s only the authoritarians who fear an armed citizenry.
As a result of RINOs playing such deceptive games (and country-clubbers predominate in the Congressional delegations) the party - though not its actual voting membership - has lost its way and a great deal of its power. The only possible route to future success is regime change - for the Grand Old Party.
None of Your Lib (NOLIB) is a weekly column, appearing
each Monday. Email responses and requests
to Paul Weiser
- be sure to specify in the body of the message that
your mail is to NOLIB. Some past articles are in the
NOLIB archives, and you are also invited to
visit
my home page. All responses
are appreciated,
and may be incorporated into succeeding columns in whole
or in part unless the sender requests otherwise. And of
course, the opinions expressed are those of the columnist and
may
not reflect the views or opinions of gte.net.